Think of others today, not peers, competing or measuring up comparatively people.
Sort of an exercise in out of the norm noticing or remembering.
Do you ever think about your grandma, your great-grandma, the legacy of their strengths and stories? The untold struggles, the pains they learned to comfort in their own quiet and unique ways?
I have an image of my grandmother all layered down in blankets, lamplight to the right, Bible in her lap, a pen for cursive notes in the margin.
On her screen porch, looking towards the crops, the winding path to Aunt Marie’s.
Looking for light, was she okay?
Had she gone to bed?
I walked out in the rain to see the bloom on my mystery vine and thought how very simple a joy!
What images make you smile, bring joy that doesn’t require scrolling, effort or comparison?
With the songs and sermon, prayers and passages, I had church today while I painted.
The thought came to do both just as I’d decided to stay home. You’ve been running, racing and getting to do lots of things.
You’re learning, that kind of running will catch up, put you in slow motion.
Take your peace away.
Funny thing, I’d never painted while “going to church”. But, I felt compelled to do it and so, I listened as I prepped tiny canvases for color.
Just as I’d listened to a new take on an old favorite, Psalm 139. Whole house silent and I heard it differently, more clearly.
The Holy Spirit’s presence.
My soul knows it very well.
I wrote just these words beside my name in the margin. This beautiful psalm is one we read to remind ourselves we are known beyond our mind’s comprehension by God who made us.
Mostly, I’ve read this psalm to remind myself of God’s intentional love and to confirm that I’m here on purpose, not an accident.
Today though, in the quiet, I saw a little deeper meaning. God knew and knows that it’s our soul that guides and informs us, that the things we need to “hear” from him, we will hear with the nudge of conviction, correction and the deepest of joys that can’t be described in words, only the pure reaction in our core/our soul. Some say gut or conscience.
How do you describe the most intimate joy of being surprised by the ease of something you feared would go wrong?
How do you describe the peace in an unexpected emotional response to something as simple as a hug from a child?
A greeting at the door with a flower and a request for a jar?
“It’s For You”
How do you describe knowing what God wants you to know that you’ve been avoiding or are afraid it can’t possibly be true?
It’s close to impossible to fully convey the soul.
That may be why David ended this Psalm this way. Sort of a brave request of God.
I’m often afraid to ask such a question.
“Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” Psalm 139:23-24 ESV
Because God knows all the beauty of us, He also knows the ways we get wrong.
Since He knows us so very well, wonderful creations, complex and complicated, we can trust that we’ll see the parts we sometimes get wrong.
If we’ll simply ask Him.
We don’t have to be afraid of the answer. It will come gently. After all, our Father is the maker of our very tender souls.
Today, I took my time, walked outside to breathe in the coming season, check on the mysterious morning glory and just because.
I stayed home.
Remembering lunch with my daughter and son on Saturday, rounding out my birthday celebrations, I recalled the sweetness of togetherness and the ways they’re so very different and deciding that’s quite okay.
Wonderfully made.
My hopes for them, always been the same, are the very evidence of that very thing, hope.
“I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.” Psalm 139:14 ESV
“because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high” Luke 1:78 ESV
To ease into the end of yesterday, I sat on the steps of the pool. It’s one of “my things”.
I let the cool water calm my aching legs, notice my toes.
The clouds and tops of trees, a mirrored reflection for filtering my thoughts and pausing.
I listened to a meditation that led to being brave enough to believe in right next to me nearness of God.
I prayed, longingly and admittedly a tad half-heartedly
maybe it will be.
Eyes tightly squeezed, I felt warm tears stream down toward my chin. I opened my eyes and a butterfly danced then rested, yellow and payne’s gray paint color bordered.
The meditation ended.
I lingered, amazed yesterday evening.
The presence of God in a butterfly on an old overgrown shrub, the softness of its appearing, the grace of the the Amen,
“And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” Luke 7:50 ESV
Given the choice, I prefer the quiet space alone. I love words, but prefer writing over speaking and even more so as I’m older and it’s showing evidence in both my appearance and ability.
I saw the sun on Monday morning and I thought of passages of Jesus coming to the gatherings, houses, and rescue of so many.
Healing as they welcomed him, restoring as they let Him in. Something about the sun on Monday caused me to wonder if Jesus ever wondered or even went back to say, “Who have you told about your healing?”
I wondered if the woman who had to stay home because of her bleeding happily began to sit and interact with others in the light of day. I wondered if the widow with the sparse amount of change she gave away kept living on little but with more happiness than any success could bring.
I wondered if the woman Jesus stopped the scribes from stoning spent all her days comforting other women who lost their way and needed to know life could change.
I’ve kept a piece of paper in my Bible since 2016, a sketch of an open book and a bullet list of why we all should tell our story.
Six years later, I’m surprised to even be asked.
But, I have and I have said “Yes.” The story is a more gentle one, not spattered with sorrow or bitter questions of why…it’s one of the tapestry of comfort in the form of art inspired by faith.
I’m grateful. I shared this morning as I move into this season of sharing and of learning.
Studying the lives of Sarai (Sarah) and Hagar is humbling me. Quick to be critical of Sarah and compassionate towards Hagar has always been my response to these women integral to God’s story. I even have notes in my Bible, all directed at mean old Sarah and as expected, feeling connected to Hagar, the one abused and shamed. I’m learning about culture back then, about many things.
I’ve got lots to learn as I prepare to follow through on a couple of requests I said yes to…neither of them sought by me. One in September and a second in October, sharing my story of how women in my Bible brought me back to painting and how their stories are teaching me.
I’ve got a whole lot more to learn, (I know I already said that 😊)how the love of God is not just for the beaten down women, but for the women who participated with words and actions against other women. It’s all about the power of God to redeem and the gentle call to us all…Come back, daughter.
There’s a bigger purpose for it all…pain, heartache, anger or regret. Hagar and Sarah experienced God’s love in equal measure. They were seen by God, completely.
I’ve got much more to learn and I’ve occasionally been corrected. That’s okay. I’m learning. But a sort of knock on my door came in the form of unexpected questions…can you guide women in your process of painting and speak on how connecting your art and faith has and is strengthening and changing you? Public speaking, live painting.😳
Honestly, it is frightening. I can write vulnerably about my journey and at one time I spoke quite often about the struggles of women, mental health and other things…it’d be a whole lot easier to keep sitting on the couch quietly drawing in my Bible or painting in the corner room in solitude or blogging occasionally.
But, maybe Jesus knocks and we let Him in and then He knocks again, saying come on out, let’s go and share, together let’s tell the story of the two of us in relationship. Let’s go and tell.
(I’ll be sharing more about the two events as the dates draw nearer.)
I pulled the brittle brown fronds from the weary looking ferns in the heavy heat of the day.
I’d watered the hydrangeas that bloomed rich cobalt blue last summer, but not so this season. I paused and looked out at the open field of green grass that was a sandy field last year. I couldn’t hear what she was saying but it seemed my granddaughter was instructing the dog “Eli” in some sort of life lesson.
And a thought came to me about me.
This season will soon be past, this Fall you’re gonna see its worth and it’s going to feel like an end to your grieving.
The thought seemed important, the timing of it unexpected, but welcomed.
I’m weary of myself. I think it’s time to acknowledge, I am here. This is now. I am not there or back then.
I am here.
Yesterday, God had me thinking about the man who couldn’t walk for 38 years and couldn’t get in the water to be healed. Today, I woke thinking of this healing after a night with a crazy/heavy dream…a dream that caused me to wonder (again) why “those things” happened to me.
“One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.” John 5:5-9 ESV
Just because I’m curious, I always want to know things like…well, once he walked after all that time did he think he might be a cripple again or like the woman bent over with a disability or the woman with the flow of blood for so many years…did they ask Jesus…why’d you allow this horrible thing in the first place and why’d you let it handicap me for so long?
These questions are nowhere (at least I haven’t found them) in my Bible.
Maybe the reason is simple, these questions are not beneficial to our strength and sanctification.
Maybe it’s that God knows we waste the purpose and value of our redemption when we gaze at our damaged places so much more than our deliverance.
When we think of our deliverance instead of God’s delay, we can live out our own healing and that healing offers hope to others…it never hinders their believing in that very same hope for themselves.
God is changing me here, sometimes it feels like I’m kicking and screaming in a gentle sulky rebellion; but, it’s a change that’s needed, a change that forgets the former and believes in the truth of promised new things.
One last thought, it’s not easy to stop focusing on your self in a time and culture that promotes self-obsession, self-promotion to be the best, and for me, self-absorption with the ever looming “why me?”
“Behold, I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them, and will reveal unto them the abundance of peace and truth.” Jeremiah 33:6 KJV
I’m guilty of using words repeatedly, words like “season” I keep hearing, lyrical sort of as they dance with others.
I like the word peace. I cherish it, settle my mind on its importance for me, more so for those I love, those I meet.
Peace is Strength
Others I’m using are resonate, redeem, and appreciate.
I pause mid sentence to use my mental thesaurus, but these words seem to be mine in this season. I see no need for substitutes.
I’ve just read the writing prompt for Five Minute Friday by Kate Moutang, the word “twenty”. She shared a sweet story of her memories of world travel, a trip she thought was one of “giving”
That turned out to be a season of sweet gifts and lessons she treasures.
I have a little quirk.
I like things in threes.
Three plants lined up on a shelf, a turtle and a rabbit anchored by a little sign saying “peace”. I love the way three seems complete, like the knot tied in a string and the meeting place in a circle of hand holders,
a ring around the rosy kind of innocent peace.
This morning, actually for a month or more, I’ve been thinking about my 60’s as my 62nd draws near. I’ve been the listener in little coffee shop chats between women, comparing which was harder,
Turning 30, 40, 50, or 60?
The marking of a new decade. I’m wondering about the years in between. The years that take a back seat to the big surprise gathering, black balloons, not so funny jokes, but sweet celebrations with family and friends cheering, look how far you’ve made it!
Thinking of “20”, I’ve mentally divided my 60 plus years by three. I’m time traveling back to 20 year old me, 40 and 60.
The seasons and seasoning of me by hardship, grief, achievements, peace, panic, fear, and many wow, we made it, they did it, so very proud moments!
Wiser now, quicker to see my need for humility, more safe with my true self.
Imperfect and not defeated by the imperfection of me.
So what if I look back I wonder at Lisa at 23, 33, 43, 53?
Were those birthdays less monumental?
I can’t remember really, just know they led to the almost 62 me and I’m grateful for every lesson, every gift I never believed 20 year old Lisa would see.
All of them, every single second leading to the truth of me.
Once, I found my father’s name in the Bible. An unusual name, “Ruel”, spelled Reuel in the Bible, was my daddy’s middle name. I read of this man whose daughters were saved from danger by Moses and I felt a sort of joy.
The paternal grandmother I never knew must’ve read her Bible.
My daddy had five brothers and a sister who died as a child. Daddy was the baby. The brothers’ names were simply normal.
I’m reading the Old Testament book of I Chronicles. Chapters, thus far are verses and verses of lineage, names interspersed with sister, brother, mother, father.
Until the fourth. A boy named Jabez was named because of his mother’s pain. I suppose she must’ve told him because when he got to praying age, he embraced his name’s baggage (born in pain) and he asked God to change it.
Doesn’t seem like he blamed his mama, brothers, daddy or God.
He just asked God to bless his life.
“Jabez was more honorable than his brothers; and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, “Because I bore him in pain.” Jabez called upon the God of Israel, saying, “Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from harm so that it might not bring me pain!”
And God granted what he asked.” 1 Chronicles 4:9-10 ESV
Not long ago, I heard something that surprised me. I heard that forgiveness relieves the torment of trauma.
This wasn’t new. I’ve made my list and I can see evidence of this truth.
But, then I heard that we’re supposed to accept that some of the wrongs done to us were intentional.
Words, fists, cruelty and all.
Crazy, I thought. The right thing to do is to see their trauma, their pain, their unrest, their unintentionally harmful behaviors as them being damaged and “doing their best”.
No, this person said. You gotta acknowledge that they were intent on harming you when they did.
Only then is forgiveness truly forgiveness.
Maybe Jabez wondered why his mama had to name him that, it’s bad enough you tell everyone how much pain I caused you.
Did you really have to make me be reminded every time my name was spoken?
I sure would like to talk to Jabez. I’d love to hear more of his story.
I’d love to know the benefits he saw of facing his handicap and asking God directly to change it. No pouting, no dwelling on old wounds, no triggers of trauma, only a life that was full because he had the courage to say.
Yes, this is bad.
God help me turn it around.
Daughter, you are healed, no longer bound to a yoke a slavery.
Words like these are for me.
Just as they were for so many who were both confronted and comforted when it was all on the table.
All the hurt, all the harm, all the hindrances to good.
All changed for better.
“Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” John 21:25 ESV
“And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.” 1 John 5:20 ESV
Pink Sky Pause
Last night, I sat poolside as the distant sky settled down in a display of pink. I’d walked a long way again, trying not to let the old body with achy joints catch up. Is it humidity or is it age and wear and tear, lack of good habits catching up?
My body is, has been changing.
I stopped social media scrolling when the sky grew more splendid. Stopped reading what researchers are sharing, what believers are noticing, what culture is trying to correct.
People, mostly young ones are conflicted about their faith. Believers are sharing commentaries and YouTubes that resemble apocalyptic horror films. Culture is confusing me about what to follow, have I been following wrong for so long?
Have I not loved well, loved like Jesus?
I returned to the practice of Bible reading today that directs me to an OT passage, Psalms, and a NT passage.
My Bible
II Kings, author unknown, follows the first book called Kings and details “the saga of disobedience” according to my Book Introductions in the back. (My Bible was a gift in 2015. You may know the story. It’s the first one I’ve ever felt the freedom to get honest with, have its honesty lead to my return to art. If you’re curious, it is a Crossway, ESV Journaling Bible)
II Kings, Chapter 9 is a violent one. I won’t pretend to understand it all, the prophesy, the lineage, the murders, the deciding who should be king.
But, I noticed one thing, a revelation type read.
They were looking for peace.
I believe they’d been looking a long time and probably long into the next books and chapters I read, I’ll discover that the people who were far from God kept looking.
Looking for peace.
Before the murders and executions recorded here, seven times there was a question of “Where is peace?” and a proclamation by King Jehu that there’d be no peace until Jezebel was dead.
What do you have to do with peace? Is it peace? Two questions asked repeatedly in five verses. (II Kings 9:17-22)
Jezebel died violently, her remains devoured by dogs and many others were massacred.
More warnings, more rulers, more seeking of peace.
I’m not a Bible scholar. I seek to understand what God is saying to me to clarify my confusion, to comfort my dismay, to guide me into Christlikeness.
So that I can be at peace.
So that I can emanate peace through my believing, toward others and I hope, through art.
Little Churches
The back of my Bible guide led to Psalm 141 and then the books of John just before the tiny Book of Jude.
“But my eyes are toward you, O God, my Lord; in you I seek refuge; leave me not defenseless!” Psalm 141:8 ESV
Second John is a letter written to a lady and her children (likely, a congregation). I found this to have a sweetness in tone, the offering of grace, mercy and peace, along with a gentle warning of what not to let in my house.
“Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting,” 2 John 1:9-10 ESV
The wolf at the door, the author of confusion, the purveyor of doubt, the stirrer up of strife and trauma triggers.
I won’t let him in my house.
“And behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.” Jesus Revelation 22:7 ESV
I won’t stop believing.
Believing in the creator of pink sunsets, precious babies, quiet oceans, and people like me who almost gave up on themselves.
I won’t stop believing.
I pray you don’t either.
Dear God, return us as we wander from you, caught in the tension of what others say of you and our embrace of who you’ve shown us you are. May we remember and return to the notice of you all around us. Help us to pause from the noise of culture to seek you, the path to peace. Because of mercy, Amen
I woke without alarm and quietly found my clothes. Carefully, I remembered the sandals were on top. The contacts were turned right side up and the bathroom window gave enough light for a splash of cold water on my cheeks.
The old door creaked as I closed it. Bare feet on the steps, I saw the pink behind me as I thought nothing of walking alone on our last vacation morning.
The promise of grandeur was kept. I thought if I could touch the far away sun, I’d never let go.
Edisto Beach
Decided that’s why we’re not made to hold such things, we’d cling so fiercely we might never see from a distant perspective.
“How deep is your faith?”
I asked myself this morning, the question in the tune of the Bee Gee’s song.
Edisto Beach
Riding home from a week away, I enjoyed what my husband calls a “conversation hiatus”, a thing he will never fully understand. I’m just glad he allows it. I thrive on quiet. I require a flushing of the mental overload, a reset of sorts, a not always pleasant assessment of events, conversations, interactions and pushed to the side for later thoughts.
Processing, becoming prayers. Seeing from a distance, not holding tight or looking too close.
Heal what is hurting. Mend what is broken. Speak what needs to be heard. Continue with me, Lord, these lessons I might begin to live, to teach.
Edisto Beach
Find me, Lord, where I left you.
Keep changing my perspective, Father. Keep redeeming what is not mine to remake.
Psalm 23 became a plea in a hospital bed for me back in 2019. Maybe I made it more than it was, the scary episode of vertigo that refused to quit. Likely, I did make it bigger than it was.
Because it wasn’t the episode, it was the fear. It was the trigger of being forced to quit or being grabbed and shaken, being unable to escape a violent grip.
Over and over for months, I said to myself.
“The Lord is my shepherd. I have everything I need.”, taking the opening line of a well known Psalm and making it mine.
Now, I prefer a different translation.
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” Psalm 23:1 ESV
One that reminds me no matter what, how, or when…I shall not be in want.
My faith will and has sustained me.
In the morning when I rise, I’ll keep considering my perspective. In all that affects me, I will pause and examine the ways I have changed.
I’ll give myself a minute and I’ll ask, “How deep is your faith.”
Knowing that’s all that matters and knowing that’s all and only what makes me, me.
And I shall not want.
“…that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” Isaiah 2:3 ESV
“Let’s go on a walk! Get your shoes!” she called out and off we go in a burst of unbridled energy, her heels in the air.
And we walk on the roads bordered by shiny wheat tops and we stay in the “middle….middle, middle, middle”, a song we made up because of country roads, high grass, deep ditches and crawling critters.
We walk a long way.
We’re looking for morning glories.
We spotted one last week.
We caught a butterfly once.
She was tiny then, barely toddling. Her face was a mixture of elation and question. She held that blue edged creature and then we let it go.
Her feet slowed to a pause. “A butterfly!” she spotted and I saw that its bottom wings were torn, sort of shredded.
I picked it up and it sat as if glued to her small finger. Five minutes or more, we talked about it, the broken wing somehow and how I wasn’t sure if it could fly.
Rust colored wings, more moth than butterfly and small, very tiny. It seemed as if my granddaughter was comfort, was safety, was in a way, angelic.
It was mysterious.
It rested, not as if helpless, more assured.
I’ve been thinking about a feeling of vague dread, of inability to put three thoughts together, of being numb to possibility.
When possibility has been so very true for me.
I thought “learned helplessness” and reminded myself of the meaning.
There, that’s it. That’s the feeling, the lack of mental, physical and emotional resources to believe in good again.
Learned helplessness, lulled into a state of whatever I can do or should…
Would it even make a difference?
I wonder if we’re all learning that we’re helpless, that we’re not difference making people after all.
We laid the butterfly down gently and unsure whether it would go to heaven or fly, we told the broken creature goodbye.
Learned helplessness, the two words that made sense to my processing all that’s gone wrong.
The remedy? Recognize it, journal about it, pray, accept what you cannot control.
Therapy, and medication in difficult to treat with self-care because of significant trauma.
This afternoon, I bought apple juice boxes, a book about travel and a flamingo towel for a toddler.
Checked my phone to see notifications on FB and saw “Pray for Texas”, looked further to read the news, the horror, the inconsolable tragic event.
And began to feel sick. Began to think of the innocence of children, the way our world is and has completely set its intention on stealing it.
I can’t adequately add to this conversation. I really can’t.
These are times that words like peace in times of trouble, hope enduring or all things being made new and made sense of by God
Just don’t seem sufficient.
Seem more “who am I to say these things?”
After all, I had a three year old wrap her arms around my neck today and say “It’s a secret, I love you. I love to the moon.” and then say it again, and again.
I felt God near. I felt it was His idea, maybe she saw her grandma feeling slightly broken and held me close.
“I love you.”, not a reply, totally unsolicited.
No words for the Texas tragedy.
I love the Psalms and I treasure the words in red, but just one thought remains.
Pray.
“pray without ceasing,” 1 Thessalonians 5:17 ESV
Pray. It’s “all you can do” and it is everything you can do.
we run away from our discomfort... but it doesn't leave us. to heal we need to turn around and face it, experience it and once we truly do we are out of it. We heal and we grow.
2 Timothy 1:7-8 For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. This blog is about my Christian walk. Join me for the adventure.
Lisa Anne Tindal 